The National Political Committee of the NPA-Revolutionaries, which met on June 6 and 7, decided to field Selma Labib, a 30-year-old bus driver, as its candidate for the spring 2027 presidential election; her candidacy is supported by Gaël Quirante, a 50-year-old postal worker fighting for his reinstatement and a union activist.
The NPA-Révolutionnaires is reinventing itself, ensuring the continuity of the working-class and independent candidacies of Olivier Besancenot and Philippe Poutou’s NPA from 2002 to 2022, and by fielding a working-class woman. This decision by the NPA-Révolutionnaires comes after Lutte Ouvrière refused to consider a joint campaign, which the NPA-R had nevertheless proposed in support of Nathalie Arthaud’s candidacy. The NPA-R remains convinced that a joint appearance by communist revolutionaries in this campaign would be both possible and desirable.
Selma Labib and Gaël Quirante, political activists and union organizers, will therefore campaign on behalf of the NPA-Révolutionnaires but, above all, on behalf of the interests of all working people and young people from the working classes: together, we must resist—through our struggles and our collective organization—the offensive by employers and the government against our working and living conditions.
Wages, pensions, unemployment benefits, jobs, and public services—starting with education, healthcare, and housing—are being sacrificed on the altar of hundreds of billions in subsidies granted to employers and the wealthiest, among other things to finance increasing militarization. French imperialism is becoming increasingly arrogant, in Africa and across the five continents where it maintains military bases; likewise in the Middle East, where it supports U.S. imperialism and its proxy, the genocidal state of Israel, against the working classes of Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Iran.
Those who work and produce all wealth must mobilize through labor struggles and political action to put an end to the capitalist system and its relentless exploitation of human labor, to put an end to the oppressions of every kind it engenders, the outrages against nature it commits, and the wars it intensifies. Against a backdrop of heightened rivalries among imperialist powers over markets and profits, the bourgeoisie is pushing ever further—not only in its exploitation of human labor but also in its use of political weapons—in an attempt to divide the workers whom it perceives as a threat: the rise of reactionary, racist, and nationalist ideas, and the eruption of a far-right hodgepodge that permeates virtually all institutional parties. We are the ones who work; we are the ones who decide: workers must put an end to these right-wing and left-wing governments whose anti-worker policies have paved the way for the far right.
Without waiting until 2027, Selma Labib, Gaël Quirante, and the activists of the NPA-Révolutionnaires are today among and alongside angry workers fighting for their wages, working conditions, and jobs: Decathlon employees, railroad workers, postal workers, auto and chemical workers, and many others. Day in and day out, they campaign to help these workers organize, unite, and come together against capitalist exploitation in a unified movement. Without waiting for 2027 or expecting anything from it, they defend a program of struggles and communist and internationalist perspectives. Nevertheless, they are preparing to use the 2027 presidential election as a platform to amplify these revolutionary struggles and perspectives.
Several dozen mayors have already agreed to endorse Selma Labib’s candidacy. Activists from the NPA-Revolutionaries will continue in the coming months to reach out to them to overcome the anti-democratic hurdle of the 500 endorsements required.
